Majority of Americans Believe Obama is a Socialist

Transcript

David Asman: Hi everybody. Happy Friday, I’m David Asman. Thanks for joining us. Kicking off tonight; “Obama’s a socialist”. Now that’s the view of 55% of American voters, according to a new poll. Now this isn’t coming from a Republican pollster. It comes from Democracy Core. This is a poling group started by a life long democratic operative, James Carville and his partner, Stan Greenberg. When this group asked 1000 voters in mid June “How well does the term ‘socialist’ fits President Obama?”, 55% said well or very well. That’s a BIG group of people! Now this must scare the HELL out of the elites in the media and academia who think such talk is just a provice of folks like Glenn Beck, not the majority of voters. But YES and yes again; It IS Glen Beck and it IS the American people who now think this way.

And when you look at the evidence it IS hard to dispute it. Nationalizing companies in all industries, overriding constitutional laws regarding property rights…. these ARE socialist policies. It’s fair to assume that the man directing socialist policies IS a socialist. And Americans have always been fair. They were fair to give Obama the benefit of the doubt and elect him and after seeing him in action, they are fair to think he’s a socialist. His recess appointment of the new health czar, Donald Berwick, helps confirm that impression. Remember, HE’S the guy who says that “The only way to improve health care in America is to force the redistribution of wealth in this country.” Now that’s the kind of socialist non-sense you hear in academic circles all the time.

And in academic circles, this talk most of the time goes unchallenged. These folks believe people are poor because other people are rich. They even extend that belief to the entire world, believing that the only reason poor countries exist, the only reason they’re poor is because they were exploited by us, the rich countries. Now that’s called “Dependency Theory”, but it’s really just warmed over socialism and it’s got the same emotional core as socialism, drawing its energy from guilt, from envy and from jealousy.

When these ideas are isolated in academic circles, well they’re just another theory to argue about late at night over coffee and cigarettes. But when they’re played out in reality, they can cause devastation. The world has buried in it far more corpses resulting from the envy of socialism than it has from the greed of capitalism.

Now thankfully most Americans, even inside the beltway, understand that income redistribution is NOT the key to our social problems or to helping health care or to anything else. They understand that the ultimate outcome of that belief is to make everybody poor. Americans don’t want a society that pushes everybody down, they want one that brings everybody up, or at least that provides the opportunity for everyone to succeed as high as they can go.

And it is on those great heights that our next guest has been focused over a lifetime of service as a doctor and as a politician. Joining us now from Clute, Texas, near Houston is Republican congressman, Ron Paul of Texas. Congressman, great to see you, thanks for coming in.

Ron Paul: Thank you, David. Good to be with you.

David Asman: Appreciate you being here. So, what do you make of this poll?

Ron Paul: Haha. Very interesting. I think it is bad news for Obama. It certainly is. But you know, we could be a stickler for a precise definition of socialism, but he certainly is socialistic. He doesn’t come out and advocate total ownership of insurance companies and drug companies and health management companies, but he works very hard with them. So it’s a form of corporatism, which lends itself to socialism. I think it’s very dangerous. I usually like to use the word ‘authoritarian’. People who are authoritarian are very socialistic and it can lead to total socialism and I’m afraid that’s the way we’re going.

But there are certainly different versions. Nazism was a form of socialism, communism, Russian communism was socialism, so there’s a lot of variety. But there is no doubt he is an authoritarian, he’s a big government guy, he’s socialistic. I think it’s bad news for him. And I don’t think socialism is a good word. I don’t think the American people like it. They like the words about freedom and liberty and things like that.

David Asman: They don’t like it, but Congressman, but they are fair. The American people have this tremendous sense of fairness and they were fair, as i mentioned, to elect this guy president and now they’re looking at him, they’re looking at his policies and they think they ARE socialist. I mean, Americans; not only are they fair, they love to boil things down to simple points. And that is a simple point, is it not?

Ron Paul: There’s no doubt about it and that’s why I say it’s very bad news and it’s good news for Republicans in general, you know, in the fall because that’s not the direction that we want to go. And I think this came out, sort of, in the health care debate. The country and the people who railed against it knew which direction we were going in. We weren’t going toward more freedom and medical savings accounts and independent choices and alternatives like that. They knew we were going for more government control and redistribution of wealth as now it finds out his appointees are probably a little more blunt with where their heart really is, and that is into socialism and forced redistribution of wealth and that’s a bad sign for…

David Asman: Well you know he’s the guy who appointed him. You know, the buck stops with him. The buck stops with President Obama. As Harry Truman said, the buck stops with the president. I mean, he’s the guy who appointed him, he knows the history of this guy. He’s appointing a guy to head up, to become our health czar, to become the head of Medicare and Medicaid, who does believe that the only way to get better health care is distributing wealth. I mean, he is appointing these guys. He is nationalizing whole industries and yes he is working with the healthcare companies, but don’t you think eventually those health care companies will go out of business as the government takes over more and more?

Ron Paul: Oh yeah. They’ve taken over insurance companies already so i think that definitely will happen. But we can expect the quality of care to go down and the movement is in that direction. But Obama, on his appointees, some people give the president a pass “because it was his advisors and it wasn’t him,” but like you point out very correctly is we, whether it’s me and my congressional office, or if it’s the president making his appointment, we’re responsible because we pick these people, so he can’t duck and say “Oh I didn’t realize he had these beliefs.” He probably very well knew exactly what the beliefs are of every single person that he has appointed.

David Asman: The fact is that American people are not giving him a pass anymore. They are saying “You are now a socialist!” 55%. By the way, I have to re-emphasize. This is the democratic poll. It comes from James Carville, the most democratic Democrat around. So if Carville is saying, you better expect it to be true. So how does the president get out of this? I mean, is this a label he will not be able to duck for the rest of his presidency?

Ron Paul: I don’t see how he will. I mean the more he gets up and the more he denies it, the more attention it will draw. He’s not going to fire all of these people that he appointed and have these viewpoints and I don’t think he’s going to change HIS viewpoints. And still, I will argue the case that possibly he doesn’t have in his mind that he wants the government owning every single thing. I still think that he’s an authoritarian. I-

David Asman: Now YOU’RE giving him a pass, but the American people… I’m surprised I’m hearing Ron Paul giving the president a pass on this!

Ron Paul: Well, I think actually if you understood what I mean by corporatism-

David Asman: No, I get you.

Ron Paul: it’s a much worse system. It leads to fascism is what it is. I mean in Germany, the business people still own their businesses. You can’t have a worse type of socialism than the German fascism did. So the word itself is a healthy word to identify what’s happening. That’s why I would slightly qualify it; socialistic means he wants to take over and to go in and run things and take care of his buddies and bail out his friends. I mean, they’re still involved with a monetary system where they bail out banks and their friends. That isn’t pure socialism when they use this banking system and the Federal Reserve to bail out big banks and big corporations. So he’s in the pocket of big corporations and big banks and that’s a form of authoritarianism, which just for me is a better description.

David Asman: Well again, a rose is a rose. The point is that politically it’s a killer. This label, if he doesn’t get out from this label, it is really devastating politically. Congressman Paul, stay with us please. We want to bring in James Taranto. He’s a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, he’s written about this also. Tim Carney, of the Washington Examiner, who has also written about it. Tim, first to you. You agree with Ron Paul, by the way, about how socialist is the wrong term, right?

Tim Carney: Well, I absolutely agree that corporatism is the right word. I mean, Congressman Paul said everything that I was going to say. That it’s a corporate socialism. Socialist isn’t an incorrect word, but there are better words and frankly, George W. Bush made us more socialist than we were. He’s the one who took over AIG through the fed, he’s the one who bailed out Bear Stearns and did the tarp and then started the Detroit bailout, so they are better words to use I think.

David Asman: Yeah, but again, James Taranto, I think this is the sort of thing academics discuss at night, whether it’s corporatist or redistributionist or socialist. I mean, the American people have simplified the issue, I think in a sort of an eloquent way, “It doesn’t matter. Look, the guy’s a socialist. He doesn’t agree with the economic ends that we do”.

James Taranto: I think you’re right. I wrote a column a week ago saying that I think calling the president a socialist is a gross exaggeration and perhaps that shows what an out of touch, liberal, mainstream media elitist that I am.

David Asman: Hahaha, absolutely, as always you have. Has this been picked up on by the way? This is one of the things James does if you don’t know, to study the blogs out there, to find out what the Internet chatter is all about. What are they saying about this poll?

James Taranto: It’s getting a lot of attention, it’s getting a lot of interest, especially among conservatives. But I want to go back. What’s fascinating is how this has gotten into the mainstream, this idea that Obama is a socialist. There were two polls done early in this year, in the winter and spring. One by the Daily Kos, although apparently there might not actually have been a poll there. He’s now accused as a pollster of making up numbers. But another one by Harris Interactive which was inspired by a book by a fellow named John Avlon, who’s arguing that conservatives are wing-nuts as he calls them. And also they shouldn’t engage in name calling. So these polls ask a series of questions that are designed to show that Republicans are crazy. So they ask you agree or disagree to the following statements. And there are things like “Obama wasn’t born in America” “Obama is a Muslim” “Obama may be the anti-christ” “Obama is a socialist”, so the idea that Obama is a socialist, a few months is something only right wing lunatics believed, but now according to this poll, it’s believed by about 55% of the American people. It’s quite astonishing how this idea has moved into the mainstream.

David Asman: Congressman, one thing that’s interesting while this label may be sticking to Obama, other labels for people that the mainstream media and others can’t stand, like your son for example, Ran Paul, they tried to label him as a racist by some of the comments he made. That label doesn’t seem to be sticking, does it?

Ron Paul: Well it’s so extreme and in that instance it was based on a false charge and it wasn’t even correct and there had to be apologies for misconstruing what he said, and you can go too far. And once again, I think you have to give the American people some credit. You know, I’ve been hit pretty hard in a few of my campaigns over the various issues, but sometimes they were just very extreme and the people that knew me in the district were like “Eh we don’t believe that,” and it just passes by them. So I think that is what happens, but it looks like in THIS case, like it was just pointed out, calling him a socialist seems to be pretty appropriate because it seems it was the same percentage that said he was too liberal. So being too liberal and being a socialist is very much the same and I think that’s probably a legitimate comparison.

David Asman: Well James, you were complaining about the term socialist before and you said it’s like you have these wing nuts on the left who were calling Bush a fascist during Bush’s presidency, but you never had 55% of the American public believing that Bush was a fascist. At most it was maybe 20% of the American public. This has gone beyond wing nut, the label socialist.

James Taranto: Yes, and Bush was not even arguably a fascist, there was nothing fascist about Bush’s administration. I mean, there was no effort to silence opposition.

David Asman: But what I’m saying is that the effort to label Bush as a fascist cannot be similar to the effort to label Obama a socialist because the level of American people never came up to 55%.

James Taranto: But this was the contrast I raised. I said calling Bush a fascist was a complete falsehood, whereas calling Obama a socialist is merely a gross exaggeration.

David Asman: Or just a matter of opinion. Tim, what about what’s happened to Rand Paul and other conservatives by the mainstream media, their attempts to label them racist or something abhorrent have failed and have fallen on deaf ears in the American public, have they not?

Tim Carney: Well, yes they have, but it’s incredible because this is all that I see the left talking about. I have a lot of liberal friends and I always say to them, “Why is the most important thing for you to try to bring down Rand Paul or bring down Sharron Angle when your party is in power and is doing, again, this corporatist stuff, this selling out the liberal base,” but on the left I think they are sort of averting their eyes to that and to sort of pick on people who have ideas that are easy to pick apart and that’s what’s going on with Ran Paul and Sharron Angle.

David Asman: Congressman Paul, I just want you to be assured that Scoreboard has many times pointed out the connections between the Obama administration and a lot of corporate entities such as Goldman Sachs, like BP for example. There was no bigger supporter of BP among politicians than President Obama.

Ron Paul: Yeah, that’s right and of course and we find out that BP was a strong supporter of cap and trade, and they were in bed with the government in many ways. So that’s why this connection between big governing corporations is the big and most serious thing going on right now. But the concern about socialism is real and realistic and the people are interpreting it right, even though there might be a technical definition that we all have a slight disagreement on, but I don’t think that’s really too important because I think it’s the direction of the country that counts. You know, when they these questions in all these poles, “are we satisfied with the direction of the country?” and they are not satisfied in the way we are going socialistic, believe me, simplisticly they say “Wrong direction, change the party”.

David Asman: James, I think that’s the point is you know you will never find a 100% of anything whether its capitalism, socialism, it depends on what trend you’re directing towards and clearly it’s THAT trend that concerns the American public.

James Taranto: Well, right, and to some extent when people say “Obama is a socialist,” it’s their way of expressing disapproval for him. Just like when people say “He may be the anti-christ,” or “He wasn’t born in America”, that’s why you get bigger answers to those questions among Republicans. It doesn’t really tell you anything about what they believe except they don’t like Obama.

David Asman: James Taranto from The Wall Street Journal, Tim Carney, Washington Examiner and of course Congressman Ron Paul. Great to see you all, have a wonderful weekend and actually, James is going to be coming back in just a moment and we want to know what you think. “President Obama is a Socialist”, is that declaration a buy, sell or a hold.

(If you’ve found a spelling or transcription error, please notify us anonymously by selecting the misspelled text and then pressing Ctrl+Enter. Thank you!)

Ow finally they figured that out. I’ll break another shocking news to you, the sky is blue and you shouldn’t look in the Sun for too long. I don’t understand how anyone in their right mind can call Obama and the democrat party liberal, that’s just pure nonsense.

EclecticSceptic

Jesus Christ. It’s laudable to imagine that Obama is a socialist.
But to imagine – that Capitalism entails few people with massive wealth and most with close to nothing – THAT’s crazy!
He uses “academic circles” as a pejorative term. This is anti-intellectual, misinforming trash TV.

Gassebol

All contemporary corporations and their servant banks must be killed. New laws which sets man above the corporation must be written. History shows that our very lifes depend on this.
Long live humanity and freedom!

David

Wonderful statement and i couldn’t agree more.

Log onto the sound money bloghttp://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/fiat-money-inflation-federal-reserve/
and start scrolling through the posts for the details on how this could work. If you like what you see, then copy paste and forward everything you can to everyone on your email list and help us get the information into circulation and working, and please contribute your own so the rest of us can do the same with them. Come help is make this happen, just as you say, our lives depend on it, and this is as correct as as well.

cellspotbiz

RP really needs to drop the corporatist scpeal it just doesn’t play well with Republicans.

JohnGift1

No accounting for how many morons there are in this country.

megarational

Fox Fiction.
GOP propaganda arm 24/7.
Disgusting.

Lethn

This is stupid, how can they base the peoples opinions on 1000 people? Mainstream propaganda at it’s finest folks, vote on your ideology not for the majority party.

we need to not be so fair next time……… we need to be very careful as to who gets in, and not the the rich take control of the american people

liuczek

It’s quite shocking although fitting how Fox News is again distorting reality and making facts out of nowhere here. The presenter is saying that by 55 pct of Americans are acknowledging that Obama is a socialist they are saing he is bad. I will throw you new fact, according to quite recent research by Pew Research Center 22 pct of Americans have positive reactions to word socialism. So it is not at all clear that those people aren’t in favor of Obama.

Machine

Personally I could careless about…Random polls, false securities, expert panels, wrist bands and ribbons, and what the mainstream bias media has to say (Fox, CNN,msnbc, etc). I for one make up my own mind based on my own experiences and my own ability to think. The only charity I care about is the “Human League” ( Seinfeld episode).

As for “what” is Obama…he is UNAMERICAN and a corporate crook! The only people that like him and support him are those in cahoots with him and those who are obtuse lazy fools that feel they are entitled to something for nothing. If you are fully capable of working and earning your own way in life and don’t, OR are not trying…You deserve NOTHING but squaller!

To call Obama a “Socialist” is being polite. He openly professes to be a Marxist in his book, and does not shy away from fascist tactics. His socialized healthcare plan is very similar to Hitler’s plan to “ration” healthcare for the “useless eaters” in Nazi Germany. His handlers are NeoCon banksters, the same malignancies that funded the Bolshevik Revolution, the Third Reich, Stalin and Chairman Mao. Obama is for America what Lenin was for Russia. His politics are right out of the 1930’s commie playbook. Destroying America in a Marxist Cultural Revolution is his plan.

Machine

If this “piece of paper” still stands…

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

…Then don’t WE THE PEOPLE have a responsability…a duity… a right to uphold this documents intentions and see to it that Obama, the Banking system, and any other governing agency or body that attempts to decimate our liberties by underminding our Independence, violating the U.S. Constitution, and trespassing our civil rights IS STOPPED.

If so…then why are we not doing EVERYTHING within our rights to stop them? Why are we waiting for the ballet boxes to be opened? Don’t get me wrong I ain’t some suicidal nut job…but we cannot afford to wait 3 more years and give this UNAMERICAN president and his band of business cronies more time to slice, dice, and destroy what is ours and stick us with the bill.

I know, and so do you, that all those above who signed…would be the first support us.

Machine

Woops…that’s “ballot” not ballet…though most politicians treat the issues like Swan Lake!!!

David

The most wonderful, beautiful, well spoken and truest words which have ever been declared throughout the course of human history, and i simply could not think of a more appropriate post for any one of the blogs on here than exactly this.

It does still stand, and it always will as it represents the “self evident truth” and i think the majority of us would give our lives both in the defense of and in the restoration of the principles it establishes which have been lost.

Once again, wonderful post Machine, as always 🙂

For everyone else, read, read, and read again, and for those who haven’t, burn this into your minds and don’t ever forget, as there have been no greater or more important words ever spoken than these. This is what establishes each and every one of the essential elements for human life to be a good, happy, worthwhile and productive thing, and without these essential elements it can only be everything but, and certainly nothing good. Live for these words, and if necessary die for these words, as they are the only things in this world worth living and dying for, and with out them the latter is simply a welcome release from the former.

Machine

“Live for these words, and if necessary die for these words, as they are the only things in this world worth living and dying for, and without them the latter is simply a welcome release from the former.”

“What’s the point? Drawing distinctions between fascism, mercantilism, communism, socialism is like debating about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
.
Sounds good to me.
.
I’m left to wonder, then, why you drew the distinction, “Obama is not a socialist. He is a fascist!”
.
Which, in case I forgot to mention, I agree with.

What’s the point? Drawing distinctions between fascism, mercantilism, communism, socialism is like debating about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They are all isms used to justify the enslavement of the masses. They are all “top down” political-economic systems controlled by elites. Communism is the most brutal and exclusive. It cannot last long. That’s because it needs a productive sphere – somewhere on the planet – to subsidize its insanity.

Ross

What is the difference between a socialist and a corporatist.Answer; very little.They both want a free lunch with the least amount of effort.It is only the workers and middle management that actually produce anything.

The last thing that cartels want is real competition.The same can be said for socialists at the upper end of the hierarchy.This is why we have a stange mixture of socialism and corporatism.Capitalise the profits and socialise the losses; meaning that the tax payer bails them out once again.

Most Western Economies have had over the last 100 yrs an average of 3.5% inflation pa.This means that due to the compounding effect of inflation we lose 40% of the value of our currency every 10 yrs.Who produces all this new money to equal this inflation? It is the banking system via the fraction reserve system that counterfeits our currencies .It is akin to letting your neighbour steal from you then loaning this stolen money back to you and charging you interest.

Is it any wonder that the USA is now looking like a third world country? The game of economics has a stacked deck.No matter how hard you work,you cannot win.

AJ

Nice post Ross,

I have to take exception to the idea of a 3.5% average inflation rate. My observation over the last 30 years is that prices have increased 10x (1000%). I don’t think you can increase prices 1000% with a 3% inflation rate.

Over 30 Years – See if these figures aren’t correct

My salary is 3x
Housing is 10X
Gasoline is 10X
Sales Tax is 10X
College Tuition is 10X

I want to see the calculation that inflation is 3.5 % !!

Presidential administrations do not want to be branded as ushering in a recession, and certainly not for many quarters in a row. So the calculation of the inflation rate has been modified and corrupted in order to mathematically eliminate a recession. Even changing the inflation rate 1-2% will avoid 3 consecutive quarters of decline, or recession.

And then the tricks they play. housing for example is eliminated from inflation calculations because housing is officially an INVESTMENT not a commodity. Hmm, how convenient. And energy costs have been removed from the “CORE” inflation rate? Could someone please explain that one to me??

And we hear these f*cked numbers day after day on the news until we actually believe them.

I say the average inflation rate has been 10%.

There’s a great website called shadow statistics that is fascinating. Check it out.

Cheers
AJ

Ross Johnson

AJ, Last year I took Ron Paul’s stats on the US $ losing 96% of its value since 1913 when the Federal Reserve began.It so happened that it was 96 yrs since the Fed was initiated.The US $ had lost 1% of its value each yr. Ron Paul worked out the average inflation rate to be 3.4%. Now to dilute a currency by so much you have to increase the money supply by 25 times above pop increases and GDP.Multiply 3.4% by 96yrs and you only get a 326% loss of currency value.The real loss was 25 times or 2500%.

What I did not realise at the time was that inflation like compound interest was compounding. If you use the compound interest formula of 3.4% over 96 years you will get 2500%.It will work the same way if you use the depreciation formula.ie 4 cents in 1913 will buy 96 cents worth of goods today.

Now in the last few years inflation pa has been far greater than 3.4%. This is why you think that my figures are understated.They lie continually and will not reveal the true inflation stats.

Since last yr Bernanke and the Fed have doubled the money supply to bail out their mates.This money has yet to filter down to the real economy.When it does,hyper inflation ,high interest rates and unemployment will totally destroy the US economy.

pennjersey83

I’m kinda starting to wish we were redistributing the wealth. The rich have a stranglehold on 99 percent of us….Im NOT talking about people who make a million a year…I’m talking about the RICH multimillionaires….Fox news keeps trying to get the 99 percent of us little guys to side with the top 1 percent. They keep telling u if we work hard enough someday we can get there. Bullshit, I’ve worked my ass off and went to college, served in the military, and I’m unemployed. LIES

LiberT4All

For the life of me I can’t understand why those who are anti-capitalist get so pissed at the so called “greedy rich people” when it’s those people who own businesses which create jobs. I would rather a “greedy rich person” own a business, create jobs, and get rich than greedy rich politicians destroying businesses and jobs. Makes zero sense. And I’d like to see some kind of proof that the Obama admin. has saved even 1 job. Show me the proof. There is none. He’s a fraud and a liar.

9:14 am: "ooo wow nice attempt at a ad hom! Did the reds steal the election from you? Where is McCarthy when you need him? Am I right?" - JBrown

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